Linking Lucidchart Diagrams to Spreadsheet Data

With our data linking capacities, you can link Lucidchart diagrams to live data located in Google Sheets. Your shape data will automatically update with any changes you make to your Sheets, allowing you to visualize your processes in real time!

Within a Lucidchart document, click "File" in the top left corner of your screen, and select "Import Data."

You can also click on the database icon in the Dock on the right side of your screen, and then on the blue "Link Data" button that appears on the bottom.

The following window should appear at the bottom of your screen:

If you have not already given Lucidchart permission to access your Google Sheets documents, a window will pop up asking you to do so. Click "Authenticate" and then "Allow" in the following window.

A window will pop up asking you what kind of spreadsheet you want to import. Select "Google Sheets," and click "Import." You can also select whether you want Row 1 of your sheet to be your header row or a data row by checking or unchecking the box at the bottom of the window.

Note: You can also import and link your diagram to a .csv file, but this data will not be dynamic.

Select the Google Sheet that you would like to link to your Lucidchart document.

Select which tab of your selected document you want to link and click "Import."

Your data is now linked to Lucidchart! Your imported data will appear in the bottom right corner of your screen.

Note: Your Lucidchart data set will update periodically to show changes made in Google Sheets. If you don’t see the changes right away, click this button to sync.

To manage your data sets, click on the upside-down triangle next to the name of your active linked sheet and a list of all of your linked sheets will appear.

You can easily link a new sheet to your document by clicking the “+ Data Set” button.

If you want to manage a data set that is already linked, right-click on the sheet’s name or click on the three dots that appear when you hover over it. A window will pop up inviting you to refresh, replace, or delete the data set. If you replace your data set with another one, your shape and page data will automatically update with the data from the new sheet.

Now that your data set is linked to your document, you can assign parts of it to shapes in Lucidchart. There are three different ways you can do this.

Option 1

Drag a new shape onto the canvas OR select the preexisting shape onto which you would like to assign data.

Drag a row or cell from your data set onto the shape OR onto the shape data panel, which will appear above your sheet data when a shape is selected. The dragged data will automatically be assigned to the shape.

Option 2

Drag a row or cell from your data set and drop the placeholder shape anywhere on your canvas.

When you release your cursor, a drop-down menu will appear, allowing you to pick between "Standard," "Flowchart," or "Shapes." Select your desired shape, and watch the data display inside of it.

Note: The blue brackets that appear around text when you hover over a shape signify that the shape contains dynamic data.

Option 3

Select the shape to which you would like to assign data.

Click the "+" button in the top right corner of your shape data panel to add a new shape data field.

In the "Label" column, type in a title for the field.

In the "Value" column, link the field to a cell in your data set by typing "=" and then the reference to the cell, e.g. "A2" or "B4." Hit your "Enter" key and the reference will be replaced by the value from the referenced cell.

Your data should now be linked to your shape! You will know that the data was successfully assigned to a shape if the data appears in the shape data panel when you select the shape.

After assigning data to a shape, you can save the linked shape to your custom shape library by right-clicking on the shape and then selecting "Add to Custom Shape Library" from the menu that appears. If you have more than one saved library, you can go on to select which one to add your shape to.

After you have assigned data to a shape, you can call the data, making your shape display it, by using the command {{this.Label}}. For example, if I wanted to call the information found in cell A6 of my data set, I would type {{this.Creature}} into the shape.

While {{this.Label}} returns the value associated with a label, {{this.Label.label}} returns the label. So while {{this.Creature}} returns "Wildcat," {{this.Creature.label}} returns "Creature."

To call data that is assigned to a page of your document, use the commands {{page.Label}} or {{page.Label.label}}. You can type these labels anywhere on your page to reference page data, including within shapes and text boxes.

You can also insert a label or value as text into a selected shape by clicking the "+T" icon that appears next to a label or value when you hover over it in your shape data panel. If you click on this icon when a shape is not selected, a new text box with the corresponding text will appear on your canvas.

Note: As mentioned earlier, the blue brackets that appear around text when you hover over a shape signify that the shape contains dynamic data.

To edit the label or value of data in your data panel, simply click on the text and type over it.

To add a new field or delete or move an existing one, right-click on a label or value or click on the three dots that appear when you hover over it. Select your desired action from the window that appears.

If you try to add data to a shape or page that already has data with the same label names, a dialogue will appear on your screen asking whether you want to replace the existing data with the new data or keep both sets of data assigned to the shape or page. If you choose the latter option, the label names of the new data will each be appended with a “2.”

If you add fill color to a cell, columnm, or row of data in your linked Google Sheet, the color will automatically display in your Lucidchart data set as well as in the data panel. If you do not see the color right away, click the refresh button to sync.

To display the fill color associated with a piece of your data on the canvas, click on the three dots that appear when you hover over a label or value box in the data panel. Scroll to the bottom of the drop-down menu that appears, and click on "Apply Imported Fill Color." Your fill color should appear on the selected shape, or on the background of your canvas if you are working with page data.

When you share a linked diagram with other Lucidchart users, they will have access to the linked data sheet. You can prevent them from having this access by deleting the linked sheet from your document prior to sharing by following the steps above, under the "Manage Linked Sheets" heading. When you do this, your data values and inserted text will be preserved.

After your data is linked to your diagram, follow these steps to create graphs from your linked data.

Open the data panel and click on the graph icon.

In the window that pops up, provide a title for your graph and then select your desired graph type. We currently offer line graphs and vertical bar graphs (column graphs).

In the "Value Range" section, enter the range in which your data appears. For example, if you had the following data and wanted to create a bar graph showing the demand for each store, you would enter the range B2:C4.

When you are done inputting your data range, Click "Next."

In the next dialog page, you will be prompted to choose the columns or rows on which you want your x- and y-axis labels to appear. In the example below, to display the store names on the x-axis you would choose Column "A" for the x-axis labels. If you want to display ‘A’ and ‘B’ as your y-axis labels/legend labels for each bar, you would choose Row "1".

Add subtitles to your axes (if you'd like) and click "Next".

In the final page of the dialog box, you will be invited to adjust the axes scale and/or color scheme.

We will automatically choose a scale for your y-axis that best fits your data. However, if you would like to use a specific scale (say, 0 to 100), then you can enter it in here.

We have three color themes for you to choose from:

Once you’ve selected a color theme for your bars/lines, you can choose the primary color. This will be the color of the first line or bar in your graph.

Click "Finish" and we will produce a graph for you!

This graph acts just like any other Lucidchart shape. You can rotate it, change it’s background color, adjust its transparency, etc. Additionally, any changes to your attached data will automatically show up in the graph!